contrary, does not aim primarily at the removal of symptoms. Psychoanalysis is more interested in asking what a symptom means and how it has come to emerge in a particular human life. A symptom may reveal an unconscious truth, and although many painful symptoms will fade away during the course of psychoanalytic therapy, the real goal is to be able to hear what a symptom might be expressing about one's life and history. Long term listening and dialogue within the relationship between the analyst and the patient can open out new possibilities for our lives which we may never have consciously envisaged. Outcomes can never be predicted in advance, but this very uncertainty can form the basis for a new creativity which emerges through the analytic encounter.